


Birds and Black Widows Caught in the Crossfire

by completelyhopeless



Series: Two Circus Birds [20]
Category: DCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mission Fic, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3273362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is on another mission, this time with May, Bruce decided to help the Justice League, Jason is injured, the Black Widow is on the hunt, Dick's doing his best to keep her occupied away from Clint and Jason, and now is a really bad time for Wally to decide that Dick should reconcile with the Titans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Missions

**Author's Note:**

> I have been struggling to get any of this done lately. I thought I knew exactly what I was doing and it would all be good, but I either didn't know enough of what I was doing or I was way overconfident or I just got too intimidated by bringing in Natasha. I don't know.
> 
> I did think it was time to explain why Dick wasn't with the Titans and what separated him from them. Also, I was thinking I really, really needed to work in more of Clint's comic backstory in somewhere. I'm still doing research there, but I liked the idea of introducing one of his bad guys to the fray.
> 
> And I think I have to break this up into chapters because it is already long.

* * *

“Is that one of Fury's toys?”

May's lips curved into a smile. “Are you implying that Fury has toys?”

“Fury has toys. He's like...” Clint stopped to think and ended up with a grimace. “He's like Batman. Yeah, like Batman. Both bastards, both wanting to control the world, both not trusting anyone. If those two met, the world would end.”

She laughed. “You know, I have a hard time believing that.”

“Are you one of the ones that believes that the whole Justice League thing is a myth and a lot of those so-called superheroes are S.H.I.E.L.D. misdirection?” Clint asked, curious. He knew that May had actually seen Coulson's Captain America stash—Clint was just glad the man wasn't a Batman groupie, too, like half the world seemed to be—but he didn't know if she believed in Captain America or was just stringing Coulson along for a later prank.

Clint could see her doing that easily. May was devious as hell. She was fun. Being around her made him not miss Dick as much as he thought he would. They weren't always assigned together, but their missions and downtime were fun when they were.

“I think we have all seen too much at S.H.I.E.L.D. to discount anything,” May answered. She leaned back, taking a long survey. “So... You know Batman, do you?”

“How can I? He's a myth.”

She snorted. “Please. Like you would have that much bitterness towards a guy that doesn't exist. What did he do to you?”

Clint shrugged. Going into his time with Bruce Wayne was not on his to-do list. He didn't feel like telling anyone about that, not even May, much as he liked palling around with her. At least Coulson already knew and didn't talk about it. “Let's just say that I didn't always shoot arrows on the side of the law.”

“You think I didn't know that?” May asked, rolling her eyes. “I flew you on your first mission—an off-the-books mission, remember?”

He nodded. “I didn't forget.”

“It still bother you that your friend didn't join S.H.I.E.L.D?”

It did, and it didn't. “Sometimes. I know why he didn't, and I knew he wouldn't before we even took the mission. We've always ended up on different sides of the same issue, and I think we knew we would, even when we were kids. We were going to stop the bad guys, be the heroes, but we learned to do it in different ways. His mentor gave him a line he won't—can't—cross, and mine... Mine I think wanted me to cross that line from the beginning, he just hid it for a while.”

May started to say something, but Coulson got there first. “May, Barton. Mission briefing in five—no, now.”

“Normally we get a call and have more than a few minutes warning. Is the world ending or are you _that_ afraid of our next prank?” Clint asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“Since you seem to be focused on antagonizing Fury, not particularly. I know I'll probably lose some assets, but I think I can live with that.”

“Cute, Coulson, but you know you love us,” Clint said with a grin. “If something happened to one of us, you wouldn't know what to do without us.”

Coulson forced a smile. “Let's not go too far. I tolerate you because you're good at your jobs. Otherwise, none of this would be worth it.”

“But it _is_ worth it, right?”

Coulson gave him a look. “You know, after what you put me through both before and after joining S.H.I.E.L.D, you should count yourself fortunate that I thought you were worth hiring. I know what you used to do, remember? I know _all_ of what you used to do.”

“Not all of it,” Clint said with a smile. “There's still stuff Dick doesn't know and he's my best friend. There's stuff Batman doesn't know, and he's the world's greatest detective.”

Coulson snorted. “Yeah, right.”

* * *

Jason groaned, trying to pick himself up, but that psychotic would-be Catwoman had hurt him. He hadn't thought it was that bad until he moved, and that was when his head started pounding and he could barely think.

He remembered her asking something about an archer, and he was still trying to remember who the archer was. A villain? Batman had told him to learn all of them so that he would be prepared, and he had all that homework to do for them, but Jason knew that the files Batman gave him were missing things.

Even without Dick and Clint's book, he'd have known that.

Clint. _Clint_ was an archer. This woman wanted him, and now Jason felt half-dead because she'd beaten the crap out of him asking about an archer.

He lifted his head, seeing a blur of black and blue that he recognized. “Di—Nightwing. She—”

“Relax, Little wing, I've got this,” Dick told him. “Just stay put.”

Stay put? Jason was going to kill that woman when he could move again. He had to free himself, but he'd get out of here _and_ he'd make her pay. He just had to make the world stop spinning first. Wait, that wasn't just the world. That was Dick. Look at the way he fought—and the way the woman countered it, almost like she knew everything he was going to do.

Well, duh. He _had_ fought her before. That was why she was searching for Clint and knew Dick—Robin—could help find him. This was all Dick's fault.

Nightwing flipped onto the next roof over, and the woman followed him, and Jason would have said something about him drawing her off—Jason didn't need Nightwing's protection—but his comms must have been broken.

He didn't care. He had to stay conscious and get out of here.

* * *

_“You know who is back,” Dick said, coming close to the bed again. “I think I'd better go run some interference.”_

_Clint reached for the sheet and pulled the cover back up over the girl. She seemed cold but she moved so much in her sleep she kept pushing the blanket off and the pain should have woken her by now. She kind of reminded him of Dick when he was doing his not sleeping not dreaming about Two-Face thing._

_“Hey,” Dick said, shaking Clint by the shoulder. “If we need to go see Leslie—”_

_“Do you think she's got an infection?”_

_“It's possible,” Dick admitted, frowning. He ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head. “It's too soon to know much. I think she'll be okay, but I'm not a doctor. I'm not even Alfred. I just know how to fix myself up a little—and don't give me that look. Like you weren't doing the same when Swordsman didn't like the way you did the routine. I always knew when he'd hurt you. I didn't know how to stop it, but I_ always _knew.”_

_Clint sighed. “It wasn't always bad. I don't know. There were times when I actually liked him. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? I looked up to him, and I could almost tell myself it was okay that he hurt me because I had a home and a job I loved and I was where my best friend was...”_

_“You know you can't blame yourself for what he did,” Dick insisted. “Even if he was taking revenge on us because he was forced out of the circus, he was wrong. He was getting off easy back then—all we did was make him go when he should have been in jail—and he didn't appreciate that at all. He twisted it around and used it as an excuse to hurt more people. I knew he hit you, but I didn't think he was a killer any more than you did, not until my parents fell right in front of me and the world ended.”_

_“I guess,” Clint muttered. “There are still times when I wish I'd killed him.”_

_“I know. I've had the thought, too, but it doesn't change much, and you know, I do have a pretty amazing life now,” Dick said, smiling. Then he frowned. “You sure you'll be okay while I go deal with the Bat? Because you look kind of run down yourself and I don't want you getting hurt if I go. Well, more hurt, considering you're already pretty beat up.”_

_Clint rolled his eyes. “I am fine, Boy Wonder. Now go before we all get in trouble.”_

_“Don't ever call me Boy Wonder again. It's so wrong coming from you,” Dick muttered, firing off his grappling hook and jumping out the window._

_Clint looked down at the girl in the bed. For a moment, he thought maybe her eyes had been open, but now he could see they were closed. He took her hand, holding it in his. She was battle scarred, and he knew it, but her skin was still soft, softer than his after years of firing arrows._

_“I don't know what I'd say to you if you were awake,” he admitted, looking at her face and deciding her hair was the wrong color, it didn't suit her. “I don't even know why I'm talking. He does that, you know, my friend. He just starts babbling on and on when things get quiet. He blames Batman for that, but I think he just likes talking.”_

 _If it had been Clint, he would have snorted or laughed. She didn't, but then she was asleep._

_“You won't hurt me, right? I think if you were going to, you would have done it back before the bomb, though I still don't know if you were behind that bomb, I guess you did.” He let out a breath. “You don't really want to hurt anyone, do you?”_

_She didn't answer, but then he didn't even know that she understood him. “You'd think I'd be better with silence than this. I'm deaf, you know. Lost my hearing in an explosion, and I spent months without hearing a word. I thought I got used to it, but apparently, I'm not. Listen to me go on and on... Hey, you want to hear a story? I'm going to tell it anyway. See, it all starts with a circus...”_

* * *

“Babs, did you already hang up the cowl?”

Barbara stilled, looking around the library. Anna had a bad habit of eavesdropping on every conversation she could, especially after the last time Clint and Dick came by, almost always asking if it was one of them and if she could get a number. Barbara didn't have a number for Clint, and she wouldn't have given Anna it if she did. Still, Anna having one of the boys' numbers was the least of her worries where that woman was concerned. Anna was so nosy Barbara didn't know how she'd managed to keep being Batgirl a secret from her.

She let out a breath. “Why? I thought you were doing some brotherly bonding today. That is why you're in Gotham, isn't it?”

“Cute,” Dick muttered, sounding annoyed and out of breath. “Bruce told you to stay away, didn't he? I suppose he decided he'd take a little vacation, too, as a lesson.”

“What's wrong?” Barbara asked, recognizing that tone and all of the things that went unsaid in between his words. “Dick?”

“Sorry, kind of—” He grunted, and Barbara thought she heard him fighting. “Busy.”

She started moving. She should have done it already, but she wouldn't have expected Dick to call on her cellphone if this was really an issue for Batgirl and not Babs. He shouldn't even be involved in anything that would need Batgirl. Bruce would have hated the idea, and if something was going on, Bruce should already have called her in if there was an issue.

“What is going on?”

“Let's just say something Hawkeye and I did has come back to haunt us—me—and I have to deal with it. I'll lead this away from Robin and out of Gotham, but I need you to look after him since Batman would have shown up by now if he was still around.”

“Dick—”

“Really can't talk right now. Find Robin and if I live through this, I'll be in touch.”

He hung up, and Barbara let out a breath, sighing. She shook her head as she went for her costume. She was glad that Clint had found S.H.I.E.L.D—the emails she got from him sounded good, like he was on stable ground for a change—and since he was actually in contact with her, she assumed that wasn't a lie—but Dick still seemed to be floundering, unable to find where he belonged.

Maybe she had to get the Titans to take him back. She still didn't know how he'd fallen out with them—the nanobots were the cause of it, but the situation must have been worse than that because he hadn't ever told her what it was and they'd stopped working with him when he used to lead them.

She'd deal with that later. First she had to help Jason.

* * *

_Natalia had never known someone who talked as much as this boy did. Talking wasn't something the Red Room allowed, and while she knew how to talk on a mission, she didn't have a lot of use for talking unless it got her information._

_Still, she thought she could listen to him for hours. She had, and normally she would have gotten up and left by now, even in as much pain as she was in, but she liked the sound of his voice._

_“I almost killed my brother,” he said. “I almost killed him, and I_ did _kill other people, not the right person, but people—maybe just one, maybe more—and I know I can do it again. Sometimes that scares me. Sometimes I think that's why Batman hates me, because I know how to do that. I don't think he knows about it—he wouldn't let me near Robin if he did—he'd have thrown me in jail long ago—and I should be there, but Dick... Dick's more forgiving than anyone I've ever met. He shouldn't forgive, but he does. He forgives me and he forgives Batman and I think he could even find a way to forgive Swordsman, but me? I can't forgive him. Not for that. The Graysons, they were good people. They tried to help me. If they'd lived, I wouldn't have killed anyone._

 _“Funny how their son has got me back on the straight and narrow, right? That's the thing about Dick. He doesn't know it, but he's_ always _been a hero. He found a way to give me another path, and I want to give that to you. I don't even know why. You could have killed both of us up there, but when you looked back at me, there was something in your eyes, something that made me think we understood each other.”_

_Natalia thought that she knew more of this boy than anyone else in her life. Maybe they did understand each other. It was a disturbing thought._

* * *

Dick jumped up, grabbing the pipes above his head and then swung down, actually catching her by surprise this time. He knocked her back, and she stumbled, hitting the fan behind them. He grimaced, knowing that had to hurt, and he didn't really _want_ to hurt her, but he didn't have much choice. She wasn't answering questions, and she _had_ hurt Jason, which meant she had to suffer at least a little.

He dodged her foot when she tried to trip him. “Why are you doing this?”

“I want the archer.”

Dick nodded. “So you've said, but you have yet to tell me _why_ you want the archer, and until you do, we're kind of at an impasse. I'm not telling you anything about him.”

She hit him, knocking the air out of him. “This is not an impasse. Tell me where the archer is.”

“We can do this dance all day, and hell, you can even kill me when it's done, and I will still not tell you where he is. If you want to know, you're going to have to do better than this,” Dick told her. He flipped over her back and held out his sticks again. “Talk.”

She looked at him, winded but definitely not out of the fight, not by a long shot. “You saved my life once.”

“Technically, that was more him than me and the fact that you want to repay him by killing him does not endear you to anyone,” Dick said, starting to circle around when she moved. They were still doing the dance, and he wasn't as optimistic about how long it would last right now.

“Why save me?”

“In case you missed the memo, Batman doesn't kill. And this is his city, so we're playing by his rules,” Dick told her. He needed to get them moving again, though, because they had to take this _out_ of his city. He'd rather have this dance when he wasn't in the shadow of the bat. He didn't want to discuss the apparent mistake he and Clint had made in saving this woman's life. He jumped off the roof, propelling himself onto the building next to it.

She must have moved the same time he did, because her jump ended by knocking him down against the rooftop. “That is not an answer. Batman cannot stop everything that happens in this city, cannot protect everyone. You had your own reasons. What were they?”

He swallowed. He didn't know that he could explain it. He wasn't just doing it because he was a hero—he didn't think of himself that way most of the time—and he hadn't really thought about it much since the day she disappeared on them. He flipped her off his back, ignoring a flare of pain in his arm.

“I don't know why we're discussing this,” he said, looking around for the eskrima stick he'd dropped when she landed on him. “You want the archer, I said no, and we should have been done with this already.”

“Tell me why you saved me and I may tell you why I want the archer.”

Dick sighed. That figured. “I—”

And then a blur of yellow and red hit him full force and he was carried off the roof in the opposite direction.

* * *

“You need to be careful,” Coulson said. “We just got word you might have competition on this mission. Here's the file.”

Clint looked at him. “Are you _sure_ we just got word of this? Because with the way you rushed us out of the door right after our last mission makes me a _little_ concerned that you're not telling us everything. I don't like when people don't tell me things.”

May snorted. “Barton, no one tells you everything. They know better than that.”

“Hey, I am not a gossip," Clint objected. He knew things other agents didn't because he liked perches and hiding places and people never seemed to look for him before having conversations they shouldn't, but he wasn't a gossip. "And further more, there _is_ someone who tells me everything. Best friend I ever had, thank you very much. He's—”

“Batman?”

“Not quite,” Clint muttered. _But close. Damn close. Too damn close for my liking._ He cleared his throat, facing Coulson again. “Well? Is this something you know about beforehand?”

Coulson shook his head. “No. I didn't. I'm sure you can handle it, though. You and May have plenty of training and make a better team than I'd like. Than Fury or Hill likes. The two of you can do this. It can't be harder than stealing Fury's eye patch.”

Clint looked at May and frowned. “Was that you? That must have been you because that couldn't have been me.”

“You're the one that shot Batman in the—”

“I did not,” Clint said, shaking his head before Coulson could spread that lie to May. “That was not me. It was the same person who dyed my hair purple and told me it was permanent. Not me. No arrow.”

Coulson just looked at him. May laughed, and Clint looked at her. “It wasn't me. Everyone says it was, but that's slander. It wasn't me. If it had been me, I wouldn't be here working with you because Batman would have—well, he wouldn't have killed me, but he wouldn't allow me to be here, that's for sure.”

She just shook her head, and Clint opened the file, making it the focus for a change. She was still smiling, and he knew it, but he wasn't going to let her get to him this time.

“This guy is ex-C.I.A. Expert marksman. Huh. Let's see him prove that.”

“Be careful,” Coulson warned. “He's not just a marksman.”

“I can handle his hand-to-hand,” May said, looking over the file. “Oh. That's what you're worried about. The mind control. You think he'll really try and use that on us over this?”

“He might.”

May looked at him. “Batman teach you anything about mind control?”

“No,” Clint answered. _Robin did, though._

* * *

“Robin?” Barbara asked, bending down next to him. He was a bit of a mess, though she'd seen the costume in worse conditions—she did not want to think about that right now, could not let old fears distract her—but he was breathing.

“Bab—Batgirl,” Jason choked out, trying to sit up. “Must have... must have passed out... again.”

“Looks like you took a good hit to the head,” she said, easing him up. “Who did this?”

“Don't know. Crazy woman. Dressed kind of like Catwoman,” Jason muttered, leaning against Barbara's shoulder. He must have been hurt worse than she could see because he had never done that before. “You... came.”

“Nightwing called. He said he was leading her away from you. Did you see where he went? If she did this to you, then—”

“He was doing okay with her,” Jason said, bitterness in his words. “Led her over those rooftops before I lost track of them. Head hurt. Got free... passed out. Great day for Robin.”

“This kind of work is not always _good,”_ Barbara reminded him gently. “And Nightwing has actually been in worse shape, don't let him or Batman tell you any different. They've both had their share of close calls. Come on. Let's get you back to the cave.”

“I can—”

“Don't be stubborn. We'll worry about Nightwing later. Right now, I want to make sure you're okay,” Barbara insisted, helping Jason all the way up so they could get down from here.

“Where's Batman?”

“I don't know. We'll see to that after you're taken care of.”

“Why? I thought Batman and Nightwing were the ones that mattered to you.”

She rolled her eyes. “You're all idiots, you know that? You and Nightwing and Batman and Hawkeye. When are you going to understand that this is _not_ a competition? I can care about all of you. And I do. Now let's go.”

* * *

_“Do you believe in second chances?” the boy asked, sounding tired. “I think I want to, but I'm not sure they really exist.”_

_Natalia looked up at him. He was wavering in his seat, and she thought he was about to pass out. The bed wasn't very big, but she had made do on cots before—she thought she had—and she could manage now. She pulled him over before he fell on top of her or the floor._

_“Thank you.”_

_She did not answer. He closed his eyes and hissed out a breath._

_“Everything hurts. You okay?”_

_“No.”_

_“Neither am I.”_

* * *

“Nice outfit,” Wally said, rushing around to inspect Dick's new suit from every angle, making a blur of himself that Dick found nauseating, but then he _had_ just been going toe-to-toe with one of the best fighters he'd been up against in years and he was still rusty after almost a year out of the field. “Dig the black. And the blue. Totally works for you.”

Dick rubbed his ribs and shook his head. “Yeah, well, you don't. What the hell are you doing here, Wally?”

“Dude! Secret identity, remember?” Wally said, shaking his head. He reached into his gauntlet and opened it, taking out a protein bar. “Man. I need about two hundred of those. Long trip. Big hurry. Almost missed you, but I think I got here in time.”

“A bad time,” Dick told him, holding onto his injured arm. “I was in the middle of something.”

“And I got you out of it. Where's the thanks, man? Where's the love?”

Dick sighed. “You're a friend, probably my best friend after Hawkeye and Batgirl, but I can't do this right now. And I'm not going to thank you, because that was _not_ as helpful as you think it was.”

Wally frowned. “Excuse me, but I think I just saved you from getting your butt kicked. The least you could do is act a little happy to see me. You just said we were friends.”

“I did, and we are, I think, but I—”

“You _think?_ What the hell is wrong with you where you just _think_ we're friends?”

Dick was going to have to hurt a certain speedster, and he didn't want to, not now, not in the middle of all this, but Wally knew better. He just wasn't thinking. “I know time moves differently for you because of your superspeed, and to you it's probably ancient history, but you do remember _why_ I left the Titans, don't you?”

“Yeah, but like you said, ancient history.”

“To you maybe, but not to me and not to the others, not to—” 

“Do you have any idea how hard it was to find you? You disappeared on us, and it took us over a year to find out where you'd gone. We only did because Robin was seen in Gotham again. You took off and left, but that didn't mean we didn't want to know where you were or what was going on with you, that we didn't want you with us—”

“The last time I was with you, I almost killed _all_ of you because I was under the delusion that you were working with Batman to kill me,” Dick said, shaking his head. He didn't like reliving that. He had actually used all of their weaknesses against them, had behaved worse than a supervillain. “As much as I've thought about it, that's not something you can come back from, so let it go. I'm not rejoining the Titans. I can't. Not after what I did.”

Wally snorted. “You know it was a delusion. We all do. We did back then, but Batgirl told us about the nanobots. That wasn't you. You can come back.”

“Can, maybe,” Dick said, looking up and trying to prepare himself. He'd lost an eskrima, and he needed to get it back. He went to the edge of the roof, preparing his grappling hook. “Won't, though, and even if I would have, now would not be a good time.”

Wally rushed over in front of him, blocking his path. “Now is the _perfect_ time. We need you.”

“Yeah, well, I'm in the middle of the past biting me in the ass, so forgive me if I'm not in a hurry to rush off to some other new crisis.”

“What do you mean the past is—oof,” Wally said as he got knocked over by a very pissed off looking redhead. “Ouch. So should have heard that one coming.”

“Yes,” the woman agreed as she used a device on her glove to overcome his metahuman ability and render him unconscious. She looked at Dick. “Do you have any more interruptions planned?”

“I wasn't planning that one.”

“Good. Because if someone else interrupts us, I will kill them.”


	2. Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint's mission goes about the same as most of his missions do: badly. Dick continues to distract the Black Widow. Barbara completes some rescue work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's interesting that the part I started out with for this chapter actually ended up being pushed to the next one. This keeps getting longer and longer, and I wish I knew how to cut it down. I suppose if I hadn't done Clint's mission, but then it needed to happen because his bad guys and backstory should be in here. I could have left out Wally, I guess, but it was past time Dick's other friends came into things.
> 
> Still, what was I thinking, getting into all this? I haven't gotten close to any of the movies yet or some of the bigger plotlines and baddies in either boy's world. I'm kind of an idiot.

* * *

“This drop zone sucks. I'd have gotten us a lot closer.”

Clint looked over at May. “This was as close as the guy could get without setting off radar and all that fancy technical stuff.”

She rolled her eyes. “I could have done better.”

He had to give her that. Clint figured she was the best pilot in S.H.I.E.L.D, whether other people admitted that or not. Fury wouldn't—he was too proud of his ability to fly helicopters—and there were others that had joined S.H.I.E.L.D. from various branches of the military that would disagree, too. Clint didn't care.

“They're not you, May. Only a few people are as good as you are—on land or in the air.”

“Flattery, Barton? What are you trying to get here, anyway?”

He gave her a look. “Not what you think. Seriously, there has to be something wrong with a woman who can put up with Coulson's Captain America collection.”

She laughed, shaking her head at him. Clint knew there might have been rumors about the two of them—that it wasn't just pranks they got up to—but he didn't figure they'd ever cross that line. They were good friends, better allies, and as much fun as she was, she wasn't his type. Not that Clint was sure what his type was, but May... He'd only been with S.H.I.E.L.D. a few days when he realized he was as comfortable with her as he was with Babs, that May was like a sister to him.

“I'm going to take up a position over there,” Clint told her, reaching for his bow. “You ready?”

She nodded. “Let's go.”

* * *

“Where is the archer?”

“Honestly,” Dick said, giving Wally another glance, trying to decide what she'd used on him to knock him out cold and what he could do about it. “I don't know.”

She reached for her guns, and he almost laughed. Guns had stopped scaring him a long time ago. He remembered training with Bruce, knew he could fire any of them if he needed to, but he never felt the need. He threw them more often than he fired them. Even if the kevlar didn't protect him at this range, even if he wasn't able to dodge, he wouldn't care all that much. He wasn't giving Clint up to this woman.

Of course, Wally just _had_ to show up now and make a mess of it. If not for him, this would have been simple. He'd already gotten her away from Jason, and Babs would get him home safe, so he wasn't worried there. He knew he'd already led her far enough away and let enough slip for her to be focused on him and him alone.

Wally was collateral damage. He'd made himself that when he showed up uninvited and tried to “save” Dick from this. Truth was, he wasn't all that sure he wanted to be saved, not after all that had happened—and definitely _not_ when he still didn't know why she wanted Clint so badly. He wouldn't even have to worry about sacrificing one friend to save another if Wally had just stayed out of this.

And why the hell did the Titans want him back _now?_

He shook his head. Thinking about that was distracting, and he didn't need more distractions at the moment. He had to worry about one thing—one person—and one person only.

“That is not the answer I wanted to hear.”

“I know that. I'm not an idiot. Jokes and corny lines aside—you have _no_ idea how hard it is to get a smile out of Batman, I was making up the craziest crap just to see how he'd react—I was trained by a man many consider the greatest detective in the world. I picked up a few things along the way,” Dick told her. No sense in trying to pretend he hadn't been Robin, though he did hope _most_ of the criminal element were still in the dark about that, not with her.

“Then you should be smart enough to tell me what I want to know.”

“We both know you're not deaf. Oh, wait, I suppose if you were good enough at reading lips we'd still be having this conversation, but in that case,” he smiled as he signed to her, and she frowned. He hadn't expected that. Whoever had trained her had made sure she knew how to read lips and speak English like a native, but they didn't teach her American Sign Language? He didn't know if he bought that. She should know. He hadn't mixed in any of the words he and Clint made up, but this could all be a trick anyway.

“Enough jokes. Tell me where he is.”

“I can't.” Dick wasn't lying when he said he didn't know where Clint was. S.H.I.E.L.D. kept him busy, and Clint didn't talk much about his missions—not, Dick suspected, because they were classified, but because he didn't want Dick knowing how many people he'd killed. He was probably on one now, and while Dick might have been able to find out where, he didn't intend to do anything of the sort. His path was separate from Clint's, and it was going to stay that way. “I don't know.”

“Why not?”

“If you really want an answer, then we have to take this out of Gotham. Now.”

She shook her head. “Why should I do that? I can have the answers I want from you without going anywhere.”

“Lady, I've been tortured by the Joker. Granted, he didn't have me for long, but Two-Face did. And I've been exposed to Scarecrow's fear toxins more times than I want to think about. You don't scare me. And you won't scare me. You can torture me if you want, can even kill me, but it won't get you what you want.”

She considered that, weighing her expertise against his claim. She lowered the guns. “Fine. We will continue this conversation outside of Gotham.”

* * *

_Natalia knew she was healing. The pain told her that she was. She had learned the difference between wounds that were in the process of healing and wounds that were festering. These would heal. She would be able to move soon, and when she could move, she had to leave. She had to go back. The mission had failed—it must have because the boys had distracted her from her target—she had not expected someone in so strange a costume to be such an able fighter, nor had she known there would be an archer as well._

 _Her mission briefing had warned about Batman and Robin. Her handlers had believed that she would be able to get in and out without attracting their notice. She was supposed to be that good, and if she was not good enough to work without notice, then they expected her to kill them._

_She had failed. She had not known about the archer, and Robin lived._

_“Did I tell you about the time he dyed my hair purple?” the archer asked, and she frowned, uncertain if he knew she was awake or not. He seemed willing to talk even if he believed that she was unconscious. “Still don't know how he managed to do it without me knowing until it was too late. Should have seen it in the shampoo. The dye, I mean. How can purple dye be hard to spot in shampoo? It's_ purple. _It should be obvious.”_

_She almost shook her head, but she had decided that she would rather pretend she was asleep for this story. It was less believable than the other ones he had told her._

_“It's not that I mind purple,” he said. “It's actually my favorite color. I love purple. Purple is great. I'm just not sure it's fair that my supposed best friend dyed my hair purple and got away with it. I couldn't even come up with a good revenge. I made his cape into a... well, it was almost a skirt, but that wasn't even intentional. That sewing machine hates me. It's evil and has a mind of its own.”_

_Natalia heard laughter, and she did not recognize it as her own at first, not until she found herself staring into his eyes._

_“You think I'm funny, huh?”_

_“I think you think you are funny,” she told him, smiling, and he was the one to laugh that time._

* * *

“What happened?”

Barbara considered covering Jason's mouth to cut off another tirade on the woman who'd attacked him and what he thought of her. While Alfred had taught Dick to be a little gentleman, Jason was still rough around the edges and the streets hadn't done much to teach him the right way to talk about anyone—including women, despite the fact that she knew he'd pound anyone who said something like that about his mother.

She let out a breath. “A highly trained female operative ambushed Robin. Nightwing lured her off and called me in. I got him back here. I don't know where Nightwing is.”

Jason shook his head. “I told you we should have gone after him.”

“You are in no state to pursue anyone, Master Jason,” Alfred said, taking out the first aid supplies. “I am not certain if we should take you to Dr. Thompkins or not.”

“Not,” Jason muttered. “I'm fine. I want to go get this bi—witch.”

Barbara shook her head. “You're not going anywhere until you're healed. Alfred, where is Batman? Nightwing said he thought Bruce was—”

“With the Justice League, yes.”

Barbara sighed. “And I suppose he wouldn't come back for this if he thought Dick could handle it or deserved to take care of it on his own. Do we even know who this woman is? All he said to me was that it was something from his and Clint's past—”

“She wanted the archer,” Jason said, trying to dodge Alfred's attempts to look at his wounds. “She kept asking me where he was, but I didn't even know who she was talking about at first. Then she said I wasn't Robin and knocked me out.”

“So whoever this is seeks Master Clinton and believes that Robin can lead her to him,” Alfred said. “Interesting. I think I may know when this event occurred, though I fear I lack most of the details.”

“You do?” Barbara asked. “How can you be sure of that? There were years between when Clint came to live here and when he left. They took down the Zucco gang almost by themselves. Why would this woman stand out among all of the people they went up against?”

Alfred applied a cloth to Jason's head. “For the simple fact that if she were one of our known enemies, not only would Robin have recognized her, but Master Bruce would not have left the city knowing she was here. She must be someone he did not personally encounter before, and that leaves very few possibilities. He did not often allow the boys to patrol without him, and that means the occasions when that happen narrow the time frame down considerably.”

“Enough for you to think you know when it happened?”

“Indeed,” Alfred answered, fixing a bandage over the cut on Jason's head. “I believe it must have occurred in the window between when you first adopted the role of Batgirl and when Master Richard and Master Clinton were taken by Swordsman.”

Barbara blinked. “I think Bruce was only with the Justice League once during that time—he was paranoid and looking over their shoulders constantly after their 'mistake' of allowing me to be Batgirl and letting me know their identities—”

“They told you?” Jason asked. “Bruce said that was against the rules and—”

“No, I figured it out. Robin and Hawkeye were only my best friends,” Barbara said, rolling her eyes. “It was kind of hard _not_ to know Clint was the archer, and Dick didn't hide his acrobatics from me. By the time I was dressing up as Batgirl, I knew who they both were—and, by extension—who Batman was.”

“At any rate,” Alfred went on, “there was a time when Master Clinton was conspicuously absent from the house. Master Richard was here, but he would leave often, and it did seem that Clinton was injured when he returned, but neither of them spoke of the cause of it.”

“I'm sure that went over very well with Bruce.”

“Not particularly, no, but it did not take long for Justice League business and the abduction to distract him from whatever he might have suspected regarding their behavior,” Alfred said. He shook his head. “I think you will surpass both Master Bruce and Master Richard's records for stitches, young man. Sit still, or I will sedate you and drag you off to the hospital where you should be.”

“It's not that bad,” Jason insisted, and Barbara snorted as she caught him when he passed out.

Alfred shrugged. “This will make my work easier.”

Barbara nodded. “I think I'll try and get a hold of Bruce.”

Her own phone beeped, and she took it out, shaking her head as she did. _Babs, need you for another rescue mission._

_So help me, Dick, I am going to—_

_Not me. I'm fine. Sore, but fine and headed out of Gotham. I had to leave Wally on a rooftop in the financial district because he thought he could “rescue” me._

Barbara wanted to throw the phone. Men. Idiots. _Get back to the cave. We can help._

_Don't come looking for me, Babs. If you want to help, help Wally and the Titans._

* * *

“May, answer a question for me.”

“I don't know, Barton. I don't like your kind of questions.”

Clint frowned, eying the grounds and trying to figure out where May had hidden herself. She did the ninja thing too well—and he knew that sounded like a stereotype, but Bruce and Dick did the ninja thing, too, which made it not one—and he had no idea where she'd disappeared to. At least she was still on the comms. “What's wrong with my kinds of questions?”

“You ask too many personal ones.”

“Are you calling me nosy?”

“I call it like I see it.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Come on. I spent the better part of my life with my best friend, and I knew him better than anyone. I don't have to ask questions with him. I know him. I know his secrets. I know all of his little tells, the way he thinks and reacts. We don't need words half the time, but if we do, we have our own language for that. So sue me if I'm playing catch-up with the rest of the world because they haven't been around for the best parts of my life.”

“You two are really close, aren't you?”

“I'm probably closer to Dick than I am to my own brother.”

“That's so sweet.”

“Screw you.”

She laughed. “I'm not just kidding, Hawkeye. You're lucky to be that close to anyone. It doesn't happen for all of us. Some people don't know how to be close to anyone.”

 _Like Batman,_ Clint thought. He shook his head. He needed to stop thinking about that. “You seen any movement from your position? I've got nothing, and I have to admit—I don't like it. We should have seen _something_ by now.”

“I don't—”

Something hard connected with Clint's head, and he didn't hear anything else.

* * *

“We are outside Gotham. Talk.”

“You really _are_ literal,” the man in costume muttered. “That comes with English being your... what, fifth language? I'm still for Russian first, which makes French a logical second, Chinese third because of proximity and population, Arabic fourth for similar reasons, and English fifth because your teachers hated the necessity of it.”

Natalia blinked. Listening to him, she could almost believe those words were true, though she knew even if she had been told before why she learned the languages she did, she would not know it now. She did not remember. She did not know. Yet he spoke with a strange logic she was willing to believe and she did not know why.

“You do not know me.”

“You said that with this slight modulation—a tremor, really—in your voice as though you were unsure of that,” he went on, turning an eskrima stick in his hand and giving her the impression that he was, in fact, bored. Or so he would have her believe. “I don't buy it, though. Sorry, but that was an intentional slip. You want me to respond to that, and I don't feel like it.”

She had never had this much trouble obtaining information before. She did not understand. He had spoken of prior torture he'd withstood, but he did not know the kinds of methods she could employ. He claimed not to fear her, but he should. She should kill him, but she wanted the archer first, and this man—this boy—was her only connection to her target.

“If you want, you can give me your name. Introductions are generally a good start to conversations. And dances, but we've kind of moved past all that, haven't we?”

“You are not amusing.”

“I make the Joker laugh.”

She shook her head. “That is not an endorsement. The man is a psychopath.”

“Ah, but there is method in his madness. Too bad no one can see it but him.”

“You want a name,” she said, tired of this circling conversation he kept trying to change on her. She could usually bend men to her will easier than this. Fear, attraction, pain, all of that worked in the past, but this one—he was not afraid. As for attraction...

“You know, I think—and I'd have to do some really pervy research or have some really inappropriate and sexist conversations with the guys—but I'm pretty sure Catwoman has a larger chest than you do. The little tongue thing you just did? Yeah, I had to learn to ignore that from her and Ivy and Harley and a few other femme fatales over the years, so as much as I love redheads, I'll pass. Oh, but maybe some time when you're not trying to kill my best friend, maybe then we'll hook up, have a torrid and ill-conceived affair. Batman has Catwoman. Nightwing can have.... Who are you again?”

_“Chyornaya Vdova.”_

“Black widow. Nice. On second thought, raincheck on that torrid affair. I think I prefer living.”

“And if I told you that the torrid affair I was interested in having was with your friend the archer?”

He started laughing. “Oh, I am going to love telling him about this. Almost beats dying his hair purple and waiting that whole day with an amazing straight face—I'm not joking, the mask was perfect; I was taught by Batman—until he actually looked in the mirror and saw his hair was purple—”

“He told me of that time,” she said, surprising both of them. “The archer told me his best friend dyed his hair purple. Secretly, he liked it, but he was still angry with you for doing it. He said he got poor revenge. It was...”

Nightwing waited, and Natalia realized she had him. For all the circles he'd tried to distract her with, the jokes and the mock stupidity mixed with dangerous intellect and training, he had fallen into that one completely. “He made a skirt out of your cape.”

“Now, see, _that_ was a low thing to do. Batman hated the whole 'no cape' thing,” Nightwing said. He shook his head. “This is crazy. I can't believe he told you that—and yet—he must have, but _why?_ Are you really out for revenge because he talked too much?”

“The archer offered me another path.”

Nightwing snorted. “Lady, you have one hell of a way of saying you want to take him up on that.”

She smiled.

* * *

Clint groaned, lifting his head and regretting it as he almost puked. Damn. Why was it always the head? And why did he always seem to miss people sneaking up behind him? He swore, after this, he was going back to Gotham. Well, no, he wasn't, because he knew in the eyes of Gotham's protector he was still a murderer, but he was going to make Dick do the sneaking up on him thing until he was able to catch Dick every time. He had to, if he was going to stay alive.

It was either that or maybe better hearing aids—and what could be better than the ones he had?—or eyes in the back his head. He would train first. He _had_ to train first. S.H.I.E.L.D. might be able to give him better hearing aids, but he wouldn't always have them. They didn't always work. He needed to be prepared if they were disabled.

He couldn't afford to panic the way he had when Swordsman had taken them. He'd lost his hearing again then, and it had almost scared him more than being captured or how bad Dick had looked at the time. He couldn't allow that to happen again.

Maybe he should try and go without the hearing aids at all, adapt to the world that way. He'd train for that, too. Dick would help. He knew that.

“You're awake.”

Huh. Even with his hearing aids, he'd missed that, and the guy was right in front of him.

“Let's not play games. Who do you work for?”

Clint knew they weren't supposed to play games, and he knew a lot better than giving this answer, but it was still funny as hell to him, and he knew Dick would laugh when he told him—well, he shouldn't discuss it, but he figured that Dick could hack S.H.I.E.L.D if he wanted to, and if he couldn't he'd trick Babs into doing it. None of this was as classified as poor Coulson wanted to believe.

“I work for Batman.”

Even though it had been true once, almost, the guy still hit him.

“I will send the dental bill to him. Promise,” Clint said, “I think you just chipped a tooth. Shame, too, because I have a nice smile.”

“Cut the crap, kid. Not only do you not know Batman, but you're also a fool. Did you really think you could sneak up on me?”

Clint shrugged. “Sneaking's not really my thing. I'm more of a sniper.”

“With a bow and arrow? You're a joke. That's what you are.”

“That's not what Batman thinks.”

“You're not Green Arrow.”

Clint laughed. “Why? Because I don't wear green? That would be way too obvious. Though I think I'm more fond of purple, truth be told. The green is a such good misdirection. Don't you think it's genius?”

Apparently not.

* * *

“Wally?”

“Oh, where is the bus that hit me?” Wally muttered, and Barbara rolled her eyes as she helped him sit up. “Wait, I know. _I_ hit the bus, didn't I?”

“I think it happens that way a lot more often than it does the other way around,” she told him, shaking her head at him. She held his shoulders, trying to get a good look at his eyes. “How are you feeling? Other than hit by a bus, I mean? We don't have much experience with metahumans around here. It's not really... allowed.”

“Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure I've got a whole lecture coming on why I have to leave the city,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “It had nothing to do with Batman, and I shouldn't have to have his permission to visit my best friend.”

“You never did ask for it before,” Barbara agreed, well aware of Bruce's feelings on that as well as her own. She didn't mind Wally so much as she did the way he'd barged in and uncovered—compromised, really—her own identity. She also hadn't liked how Bruce reacted to him knowing. Still, having Wally around was one of few things that made Dick smile after being tortured by Two-Face and Clint leaving.

“You're not still mad about that, are you?”

She looked at him. “You almost told my father I was Batgirl. Did you really think that would be easily forgiven?”

“I thought he knew.”

“I think he _suspects,”_ Barbara said, knowing her father was not a fool, “but we've managed to keep it from him so far. If my father knew, then he'd have to step down as commissioner. I don't want that, and I will hang up the cowl first. I just—he can't know, Wally. It puts him in a bad position. Technically, everything we do is against the law.”

“You're a hero. Heroine. Whatever.”

“Sometimes.” She hadn't really thought of herself that way. She had started to help her father, and she still did this because it did help him, eased his burdens, shut down the worst of criminals, and she was good at it. She even enjoyed it, though not in the same way that Dick did. “I do break the law, though. I go where the police can't. I do things that I would be arrested for if I wasn't in a mask. This is Gotham. It's darker and uglier, and it creates things that are even worse than it is. Sometimes I think my father and Batman are wrong. This city can't be saved. We're a stopgap, and we can't hold the line forever.”

“Wow. What got into you?”

She grimaced. “I've just been thinking about my life choices and about finding better ways to make changes—and it doesn't help knowing what this work can do to people. I saw where it took Hawkeye. I know he found a way back from it, and I am glad he's doing better now, but Nightwing...”

“Nightwing?”

Barbara frowned. “How hard did you get hit? I told you he goes by Nightwing now.”

“Right, you did,” Wally said, forcing himself to his feet. “Talk about a low blow. Giving away a name that his mother gave him?”

She nodded. She didn't think Bruce could have done worse to Dick than when he'd taken away Robin. Bringing Jason in wouldn't have been wrong—it wasn't—if Bruce had only given him another name, another role other than Robin. “Batman didn't consult me until it was already done, or I would have stopped it. I don't know. Nightwing seems to have taken it rather well—” 

“Rather well?” Wally snorted. “I've never seen him like this, and I saw him after Two-Face and during the nanobot thing. I swear I'm more worried now than I was then. I don't care if he calls himself—he wasn't sure if _we_ were friends. _Us._ Not sure if _we're_ friends. And then he told me he wasn't coming back to the Titans. Ever.”

She winced. “I'd hoped he'd change his mind. He needs something—someone—around to ground him. He's so lost right now.”

“Yeah, he's lost all right,” Wally agreed, looking around. “One very lost little bird. Where the hell did he go?”

Barbara shook her head. “I don't know. I _do_ know that he doesn't want us to follow him.”

“We're not really going to do that, are we?”


	3. Impasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint's still in enemy hands. The mission has gone south, but Coulson doesn't know it yet. The Batfamily is still dealing with the fallout from the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section of the story has fought me so much I wanted to delete the whole circus birds universe or quit writing or both. I have been so frustrated and so writer's blocked and I swear it was starting to affect my other series. 
> 
> After time away from it, rereading it, sending it off to get people's feedback and advice, and then rewriting it, I hit yet another wall with it. I was... very displeased, to say the least.
> 
> So I ended up finding a place to end another section, splitting the part that's still troublesome off, and here. Update. I'm about ready to wash my hands of it altogether, but maybe with more time and more thought, I'll figure out the last pieces to wrap this part up for good.

* * *

“Just... you wait...” Clint said, trying to make his mouth form words. Everything hurt, and he did not know where the things on the wall came from, but they were screwing with his head good. He didn't know why everything kept moving over there. He supposed it was probably a head wound, but he couldn't help thinking about the whole brainwashing thing. Were those shadows on the edge of his vision because he was injured or did this wonderful interrogation have elements with mind control? 

“Wait for what, archer?” the man in the mask asked, and Clint tried to decide if the eye thing was a fashion choice—guy was a lousy pirate, but Dick would find the costume funny—or if he might need it. Missing an eye. Clint could use that later. Maybe. “You going to jump out of those bonds, use your super strength and speed to pay me back for all of these wounds? You're pathetic. Worst excuse for a hero or agent I've ever seen. And you carry a bow.”

Clint would like to see that jerk actually try and use the bow. It would break his damn arm if he did. Then Clint would get him in the eye and win. That sounded good right now. Very good. “'Til... cavalry... comes...”

The other man laughed. “I don't think so. I know how you people work, especially the kind of team they'd send after me. You don't have a way out. You don't have an extraction plan. You'll be disavowed by your agency, and you can either rot here or die. I prefer it if you die.”

“I don't,” Clint told him. He had to find a way out of this. He wasn't in good shape for that, and that meant he'd have to trick this guy into a mistake—and with his mind kind of going, that idea was pretty damn iffy—or wait for rescue. The jerk was right—they had gone in without an extraction plan, so the only consolation that Clint had was that May wasn't here with him. He didn't think she had been caught, so she could still come for him. That was something.

Clint knew it was a betrayal to think it, especially after all the times that May had come through for him, but he wished he was working with Dick right now. Thing was, Dick would do it. He'd rescue Clint even if he didn't need rescuing. Clint knew that. Of all the partners that he'd worked with before, Dick was one of the most loyal as well as the most stubborn. He'd come after Clint the way Clint had come after him—only Dick would leave people alive when he did. No, he would get in and get out without having to end even one life. That was how good Dick was.

“Let's try a different tactic,” the man said, leaning in to Clint's face. “You seem to be able to withstand the pain, but let's see what happens when we go deeper into your mind? I find most 'tough guys' are more vulnerable than they want to believe.”

Clint almost laughed. “I'm not... not... scared... I... know... a guy... still... a hero... when he... was being... tortured by... nanobots. Not... scared of... you.”

“Should I be clichéd?” The man laughed. “Very well. You _will_ be.”

Damn. Clint really hated when they got cliché.

* * *

“Wally, slow down,” Barbara said, holding up a hand to get the speedster to stop talking. She was lucky he hadn't picked her up and sped off into the sunset, and she knew the only reason he hadn't done that was that he didn't know where to go. “I know that's almost impossible for you, but I need you to stop and think about anything you might have overheard because if we _are_ going to find Nightwing, we need whatever we can get, and he's not going to help us.”

Wally looked at her like she'd lost her mind, and Barbara sighed. She shouldn't have to explain this because Wally _did_ know Dick, he knew him well, and he should know how Dick thought. The trouble was that Wally wasn't thinking himself, not with Dick in danger, and that wasn't going to work. Cooler heads had to prevail, which meant hers, but she wouldn't say that she was the calmest person right now, either.

Dick going off on his own worried her as much as it pissed her off, and Jason was hurt, so she wanted to be where he was to make sure he recovered. Then there was Bruce and all his screwed up parenting causing so many problems, and that was enough on its own some days. Right now, she wanted to know what the hell Clint and Dick had done to get them all in this mess.

“Robin said this was about Hawkeye,” Barbara said, unsure if Dick hadn't told Wally that or if the speedster had missed it. “She's after an archer, after Hawkeye. And Nightwing will not let us find him as long as he's keeping her from Hawkeye. You know that as well as I do. He won't put any of the rest of us at risk. As much as he cares about Hawkeye, he knows how Batman and the others feel about people who kill. He won't let anyone else take this on, so if we are going to find Nightwing, it's going to be in spite of him, not because of him. Do you understand?”

Wally nodded. “Yeah, but this is messed up. I know he grew up with the guy and he's like a brother, but it won't solve anything if he gets himself killed in Hawkeye's place.”

Barbara agreed with that, but that didn't mean Dick would, and that was the problem. “I know that, and you know that, but I doubt that's the way he's rationalized this. Come on. Let's head back to the cave. There's nothing we can do here.”

Wally looked at the rooftop, shaking his head. “You know he won't be there. Even if he took out that chick and ended whatever this is, he won't show up in the cave. He's still fighting with Bruce.”

Barbara gave him a look. How stupid did he think she was? She knew better than most just how strained things were between Dick and his adoptive father. “We need to go to the cave to regroup and start strategizing. Nightwing won't contact us or take our calls, not when it puts Hawkeye at risk. About the only one who can talk him out of that is Hawkeye himself. It's been a while since Hawkeye emailed me anything, which I assume means he's on a mission. If that's true, there's only one way to get word to him, but we're going to need someone else's help.”

Wally frowned. “You mean Nightwing? I thought that was the whole point of—”

“No,” she said, wondering why Wally had to be this dense right now. She knew it was probably lack of food and stress, but her own temper was way too short to be dealing with any of this. “I mean it's time to invite someone to tea.”

“What, the Mad Hatter?”

Barbara sighed. Sometimes she thought they needed to give Alfred a codename and other times she wondered if subtlety was completely lost on speedsters and it wasn't worth trying to convince them how important it was. She wasn't going to mention Coulson's name or Alfred's in the field. They'd discuss that back at the cave.

“Wally, just remember you're a damn speedster and get us back to the cave now,” Barbara told him, and he gulped before grabbing hold of her and setting off.

* * *

_Natalia knew that the boy was still sleeping when she rose. She had been listening to him for a long time, unable to sleep herself. She knew her wounds were almost healed, and she knew she could not stay. She knew she should not enjoy listening to him speak or his presence beside her. She was a killer. A weapon of the state. Killers and weapons did not have friends._

_This boy... he had offered her friendship._

_She did not deserve friendship._

_She looked down at his bed, watching him sleep. He was a good person. He had... heart. She had been told that emotions were a weakness. They were exploitable, and she had been trained over and over in how to exploit them. That was what she did._

_This boy... he was different. He had not exploited any emotions. He was sincere in his offers. He did not lie with his stories. They were all true. They were his in a way that she did not have, she knew of no stories that were hers and hers alone, none she could share as he shared his._

_She was not a friend. She was a weapon. She had no other path._

_She needed to leave. Now._

_“He'll be disappointed, you know.”_

_Natalia stopped. She would have sworn that she and the archer were alone. The boy was snoring in his sleep, and she did not miss being next to that sound. He was still asleep, He had not spoken. Robin had returned, and she had not heard him. That was unlike her. It was wrong. She was still a failure._

_She turned, looking back at the bright costume and into the mask, frowning at the white where the boy's eyes should be. She knew she had seen the mask before, but she did not have enough body language to read and wanted to see what was in his eyes._

_“You might even break his heart.”_

_“He is not in love with me.”_

_“I didn't say he was. You don't have to be in love with someone for them to break your heart. Anyone you care about—even some you don't—can break your heart.”_

_“Impossible.”_

_Robin shook his head. “I don't think you know enough about that, not as much as you think you do. You might have training in how to manipulate people, but that's not the same as letting someone in or caring what happens to them. He cares about what you do.”_

_“What do you mean? He does not know me. What I do cannot matter.”_

_Robin snorted. “I didn't know the man who killed my parents. Do you think that mattered? That it didn't change me? Not that it's the same with him and you. He wants to believe in you, that you'll take another path.”_

_“There is no other path. I am a weapon.”_

_“No, you're a person.”_

_She shook her head. “And you are a fool.”_

* * *

“Sir?”

Coulson looked up at the agent who'd approached him, frowning as he did. He knew that Barton and May were overdue for contact, but it wasn't unlike them to maintain radio silence until after the mission was done. May seemed to prefer it that way. For all she loved pranks, she wasn't much of a talker, not about herself or anything really personal.

Still, their temporary mission base was too quiet without either of them.

“The pilot says he can be wheels up in five if you want him to be,” Ross said, forcing a smile.

“You give Barton and May that little credit?”

“Well...” Ross grimaced. He stood military ready, and Coulson wished they'd assigned him somewhere else. Coulson was pretty by-the-book, he followed rules, he trusted the system, and he liked paperwork. That didn't mean he didn't see the value of people who bent those same rules and thought outside of the box. That was what he valued most about Barton and May and even Hill. “Sir, they're not exactly the most reliable of agents.”

“I rely on Barton and May to do what needs to be done,” Coulson said. Ross flinched. “I also trust them to come back worse for the wear, so have the pilot and plane standing by.”

“Yes, sir.”

Coulson let him go, shaking his head. He started to stack the paperwork again—he always started early when he had May or Barton in the field—and reached for another form. He knew he'd need it now. His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he shook his head as he realized something else he'd be missing this week. Again. 

He accepted the call with a slight smile. “Mr. Pennyworth.”

“Mr. Coulson.”

“I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to make tea this week,” Coulson said, wondering how well the butler who worked for Batman could read his voice and if he would know just how bad things were without Coulson actually admitting to any of it. Probably. The man had been part ninja when Coulson was there, always appearing when he seemed to be miles away, and part mind reader, since he always knew what everyone needed. He usually preempted Phil by calling first when Phil needed to cancel.

“Of course. I understand. Your employment keeps you quite busy.”

“More than usual of late, but yes, it does,” Coulson agreed, taking out a map of the area. His people were in there, they might be in trouble, and if they were, he needed to get them out. He shouldn't have sent them in there in the first place, but this was their job. This was what they did.

Things didn't always work where the good guys won and everyone lived. Phil knew that. He had accepted it years ago. He had seen a lot in his years with S.H.I.E.L.D, and he knew that he would probably die doing this work. He accepted that as well.

“I was hoping you would perhaps pass along my regards to a certain former charge of mine,” Pennyworth went on, his tone almost conversational. “It would seem there are some... concerns here that would have perhaps been best left to his hands, though I understand Master Richard took it upon himself to deal with them.”

Coulson considered the implications of that for a moment. He tried to read between the lines. Was this something he needed to send Barton to handle after this mission was over? Or was Grayson enough? Pennyworth must not think so, or he wouldn't have mentioned it—Batman wouldn't want Barton back, so the butler had to have a good reason for wanting that and passing along the veiled message. 

“Is Grayson—he handled it?”

“That remains to be seen,” Pennyworth answered. “All I know is that he was determined to keep everyone else out of it after harm came to Master Jason.”

Coulson flinched. That kid was only _twelve._ Yeah, he grew up on the streets and he was tougher than he should be at his age, and even Grayson was—well, Grayson and Barton were scary capable at thirteen or so, but no kid deserved the kind of injuries that Coulson knew the ones playing hero got. He'd been the kids' tutor because they'd been hit by sonic technology, and losing their hearing was actually kind of the _better_ outcome of the possible ones there.

“How is he?”

“He will not be mobile for a while without tearing stitches, which I fear will anger him more than this mess already does—and myself, as well, if he _does_ tear them—however, he escaped the worst and has no internal injuries,” Pennyworth said. “His situation seemed more grave when he was first brought in, I assure you.”

“I hope he recovers quickly,” Phil said. “This... situation. You think it's something that needs the attention of my employers?”

“I think _my_ employer would object quite strongly to that.”

“I know,” Phil said, letting out a breath. He knew how much Batman hated outside interference in “his” city. “Barton's unavailable right now, but if you need any assistance, let me know, and I'll stop by for something more than tea.”

“I had thought of arranging a family dinner, though I doubt I can convince certain wayward parties to attend it.”

“You never know,” Phil said, checking the time again. Still no report, no sign of his wayward agents. This was not looking good. “Barton is probably going to need some downtime after this mission.”

“Yes, well, some others might as well, but it will be difficult getting them all under the same roof.”

“I suppose if you extended the invitation to May you might make more progress with Barton. They're good friends—unholy terrors—and he does like to tease me about her—I mean her, so that could help,” Phil said. He winced at his own foolish words. He did not need to give credence to any rumors going around S.H.I.E.L.D, most of which were Barton's fault anyway. “It would also help as I believe Grayson liked her as well. They joined forces to play pranks before.”

“Indeed.” Pennyworth's disapproval was clear in his voice. “Well, such antics aside, I would not be adverse to meeting this young woman.”

“I'm sure she'd love you,” Phil told him, thinking that the butler would be caught in the crossfire this time. “I'm sorry. I need to go. Thanks for the raincheck on the tea, Alfred.”

“As always, Mr. Coulson.”

Phil hung up and rose, needing to see a pilot about getting his agents back.

* * *

“You want to talk about it?”

Bruce didn't even look up. “No.”

Clark sat down anyway. The Kryptonian was always doing that, and it made Bruce wish there wasn't another chair near the monitor screens on the Watchtower. He didn't want company. He seldom did. “This isn't the first time that you've come to the Watchtower to avoid something that is going on in Gotham.”

Bruce chose to ignore that. He saw no point in protesting or explaining. One would confirm the assumption and the other would give the reporter information that Bruce did not want to share. He pulled up another file, determined to ignore the so-called man of steel.

“Do you blame me?”

“For being a self-righteous boy scout? Always. If there's something else you had in mind, you'll have to specify them,” Bruce told him, reading over the details a second time. He didn't know when Dick had made his friends at the race track, but then he did seem able to charm most people. He was liked by everyone and yet close with only a few.

“For not seeing the nanobots.”

Bruce frowned. “What does that have to do with you?”

“I have x-ray vision. I can read your heartbeat, use its unique rhythm to track you,” Clark reminded him. “I'd think you'd be angry that I never detected them and it cost you your son.”

Bruce grunted. “The nanotechnology was programmed with unique triggers. Hatter and Scarecrow worked together, using what they could against us. Dick's were triggered by references to me, and he saw me kill him repeatedly. It was usually set off by proximity to me but not always. He withdrew because of the trauma. He refused to see you. What do you expect? You're not omniscient. You're not even a telepath.”

“No, I'm not, but I should have been able to sense something.”

“J'onn didn't. He saw no outside trigger for Dick's hallucinations. We all agreed it must be PTSD, and you were all angry with me for refusing to take him to a counselor. It was the one thing he and I agreed on during that time.”

Clark shifted in his seat. “Bruce, did you ever see yourself killing him?”

“No.”

The Kryptonian stared at him, eyes hard. “Are you sure about that? The way you reacted, your overprotective—”

“If I thought I was the threat to him, did you really think I'd have kept him close to me? I saw him hurt. I saw him dying. I saw him injuring himself, I was starting to think he'd... That he'd take his own life if the visions he was seeing didn't stop. It wasn't me hurting him, though.”

“It was about losing him,” Clark said, and Bruce almost rolled his eyes. What the hell had he just said? For being a “super” man, Clark could be an idiot more often than not. “Your greatest fear—losing someone you care about. Ever since your parents died, you've been afraid of being close to anyone because you might lose them. You can't help being close to Alfred, but there are times when you strain that relationship past its limit. And as for Dick... First you tried to protect yourself by keeping him at arm's length, and then you actively took steps that drove him away.”

“The hell are you—”

“You made him choose sides in a battle he should never have had to fight. There wasn't any reason why he couldn't have you as as father and the other boy as a friend—No. Don't try and justify it with his career choice. That had nothing to do with why you never got close to Clint,” Clark said. He shook his head. “You were so afraid of losing _either_ of them—Dick, I think, more than Clint because Dick has a way of burrowing past anyone's defenses without even trying—that you shut one of them out and confused the hell out of the other one. Shutting Clint out worked. He never felt wanted or needed and he chose to leave. Dick chose to stay. He chose you over his best friend, and that made your fear of losing him even stronger than before—and then you both got infected with nanobots.”

“What is the point of any of this?”

“The point is that you are here, in the Watchtower, avoiding the one person you _want_ to see,” Clark said. “For the world's greatest detective, you can be a real idiot sometimes. Go home. Go see your son before he leaves again.”

* * *

“So... you want to get in touch with the archer.”

The Black Widow was annoyed. That was all over her face, and Dick had a feeling that she was way too close to murderous for his own safety. He knew better than to push her buttons, but he was still stalling for time, trying to find some kind of option or way out of this because he wouldn't give her Clint and he didn't feel like dying today. Then there was the reason she claimed she was here. She'd thrown him with that. He could admit it. He wasn't sure what to do with her. She was dangerous, and yet a part of her _could_ have been sincere about wanting the other path. 

He remembered how she'd denied that before, but she was almost sincere about it now. Hard to be sure with someone who had her kind of training, but she _had_ gone to a lot of trouble to find Clint, hadn't she?

Then again, she hadn't found _Clint._ She'd found Dick—well, no, she'd found _Robin,_ she'd hurt Jason, and now she had Dick, and maybe this wasn't about any other path at all. Dick didn't know what to think, and he definitely knew better than to trust her. He had been raised by Batman, after all. If nothing else, he'd learned paranoia from the other man.

“I have already said that,” the woman snapped. “You _know_ this. Why are you wasting my time? Are you expecting Batman to come rescue you?”

Dick almost snorted. “Batman hasn't rescued me in a _long_ time, lady, and hell will freeze over before he does again. You don't get it. I am _not_ Robin anymore. I don't work with Batman. I don't work with anyone.”

“Then why the pointless delay?”

“Because I'm not stupid. I don't turn my best friends over to people that will kill them. I don't know you. I don't know to trust you to take that other path. If you really wanted it, why have you waited so long to take it? Why do you need help to find it instead of doing it on your own? Why didn't you just say that you wanted to change instead of hurting Robin and fighting me half across Gotham? You haven't shown me _anything_ to encourage me to give my friend over to you,” Dick told her. He almost reached for his eskrima sticks again, but he didn't want to start another fight. Not now. “Start convincing me. And don't think violence is the answer. Seduction isn't, either. Honesty might help, but then again, if you are what I think you are, I'm going to have a damn hard time believing anything you say.”

She acknowledged that with a nod, and he thought for a moment she was at a loss. This wasn't what she was used to, was it? She convinced people by force or seduction, some kind of manipulation. Truth was almost foreign to her.

“I... I do not have many memories,” she said, and he waited for more. She drew in a breath and let it out. “I remember him. I remember you. I do not remember much else. I do not know what is... true.”

Dick wondered if it was amnesia or something worse. Could be brainwashing. He had some unpleasant experiences with that himself. “And you think this—this moment, right here, right now—is?”

“You are,” she answered. “You are no longer Robin, but you are still real.”

Dick nodded. That he couldn't argue with. “I have to figure, though, that the people who taught you to do what you do—and there were plenty of them, which suggests a program of sorts because you would remember all your different trainers if you sought them out—and let's be realistic, chasing down them would have come to you first before going after a kid in a red, yellow, and green costume. You should know them, should have gotten your answers from _them._ The people who train you, who mold you—it's kind of hard to forget them unless... unless someone wants you to.”

She looked at him. Her voice was strange when she spoke. “They made me forget.”

“Is that a question or a statement?” Dick asked, and she glared at him again. “Look, I don't know. I'm filling in things as best I can, aware that I might be falling into one of your traps, but at the same time, these are just _guesses._ I don't know enough to tell you what happened to you all your life. My friend spent more time with you than I did, and he was injured, too, so he barely remembers that time.”

“You're saying he forgot me.”

Dick shook his head. He doubted anyone who met this woman forgot her. That just wasn't possible. He hadn't recognized her at first, but then he figured changing her appearance was one of her many skills. “No. I don't think he did. I didn't.”

She snorted. “You did.”

“It took a moment to connect you to the girl from back then. I don't have a perfect memory,” Dick said, thinking of Barbara and how she never forgot anything. “I can tell you what I know of you from what I remember and what I've seen, but I don't know you any more than you claim not to know yourself.”

She watched him. “And what do you know of me?”

“I see Russian military training in some of your moves. I hear a slight Russian inflection in your voice. I also see training that comes from disciplines I know and ones I don't. You seem to know almost as many martial arts as Batman. You fight almost like a dance, but I don't know that you have formal dance training. There's something missing there—an en point or something. I don't know. Dance wasn't my thing, either,” he admitted. He _could_ dance, and he wasn't half bad at it, but he was never in ballet, just an acrobat, trapeze artist, and gymnast. “You were familiar with guns, which is a different sort of expertise but not all that uncommon. You countered all of the moves I made with my eskrima, so you know that as well, and I'm guessing I don't want to meet you in a knife fight. The technology in those gauntlets is impressive—it took down a metahuman. Still, that's not _you.”_

“It is. I am a weapon.”

Dick frowned. “You know, I didn't believe that the first time you told me that, and I really don't now. I should. I should knock you out and turn you in or just run like hell from this because I'm not so sure I could do that knocking out and maybe I should call in my 'uncle' for help, but you know I'm almost crazy enough to think you might mean this.”

She tilted her head, studying him. “You are not deceiving me?”

Dick watched her, wondering if many people managed to trick her—if anyone did. “Do you think I could lie to you?”

“You would, to save your friend.”

“I _would,”_ Dick agreed, “but does that mean I _could?_ Aren't you trained to know the difference?”

She gave him a long, hard look. “You say I am not a weapon. What am I?”

“A person. A person who may not have felt she had a choice before but she has one now. She can do what she wants now. That could be killing me, that could be leaving here, that could be almost anything. I'm just...”

“What?”

“Frankly, I'm worried. The whole 'new path' you got offered before? I'm not sure I know how to help you get it. Not now. I don't have those kinds of resources.” Dick might have tried before, when he and Bruce almost got along, but he knew he didn't have that option now. “My friend... He might. These days he works for a covert agency. They'd have the resources to back his play, be able to overcome the people you used to work for.”

“The only way to end their threat is to end them.” 

He shook his head. “You could turn this into a war, the one between you and them, but if you are sincere about this new path you want to take, you _won't._ You'll do it legally. If you want his help, that's the only way to play it because it's the _only_ way I'm going to help you and you damn well know it. I'm not telling you any more than I already have. I don't help people kill. I _stop_ people from killing.”

“Then you should be stopping me now.”

“Oh, that,” Dick said with a grimace. He wished he was better at calculations on the fly because he wasn't able to overcome her own modified genetics fast enough. Still, once he'd seen that it _did_ work, that she'd faltered a little, he'd known he could do it again if he could get the right things in place. It was a risk, since he figured she would know what he'd done as soon as he tried it, but he'd managed to keep her distracted. “I never said I wasn't.”

He saw her frown, and he knew she was waiting for him to move to tell her where the trap was or which way she should go to avoid it, but she'd stepped into it when they left Gotham. She should never have agreed to that, but she had, and he'd used it.

“You lied.”

“It is so wrong that you're impressed by that.”

She shrugged. “Not many fool me. You are correct about that.”

“Grew up with Batman. Had to be very damn good at lying if I wanted to get anything past him. Rarely did, but I had my moments,” Dick said with a grin. Then he stopped smiling. “It kind of helps that I took down the entire superhero team I used to work with once. Learned a few things about overcoming metahumans without them knowing what was coming.”

“You are more dangerous than you seem.”

“Misdirection and being underestimated are my friends,” he agreed, moving in to catch her as she faltered, finally succumbing to the toxin he'd exposed her to. A part of him felt bad about all this. He wanted to trust her, but the plain truth was—he _didn't._

“You... killed me?”

“No,” he promised because he knew she'd come around out of this. “I don't kill. I just... I did my part. When you wake up, whether you choose another path or not is up to you.”  
“I might wake up and decide to kill you.”

He nodded. He was aware of that possibility, too. “You might. I hope you won't, but for now, my favorite little spider, get some rest. We both need it.”

He sat down with her and closed his eyes, letting out a breath before reaching for his zip ties.


	4. Rescues and Realities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint needs a rescue, and he just might get one. Dick deals with the Black Widow. Or doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally managed to fill in a few more pieces, and I just hope it is enough now because I don't think I know how to make this better. I am just glad it is finally done.
> 
> It taught me some painful lessons and I will be doing updates of this series differently in the future.

* * *

May opened her eyes and groaned, refusing to move as her vision saw spots and her head throbbed with pain. She'd only intended to play dead after she lost contact with Hawkeye. She'd known something was wrong as soon as he stopped talking. He wasn't much of a talker except when he was on comms, and then he was a damn chatterbox. She could almost never shut him up. She figured it was something to do with needing to know that someone was on the other end of the line, and she might test that theory by putting hers on a setting that would let him hear her breathing.

Right after she dyed his hair purple.

She forced herself up from the ground. Her head did that annoying spinning without moving thing, but she pushed it aside with a grunt, moving forward. She had to find Barton, and knowing their luck, he was right smack in the middle of this place, surrounded by lots of guards and some terrorist whack job. Sometimes she wondered why she'd signed on to be an agent, and then she connected her fist to someone's face and remembered.

She reached into her pocket, took out a couple of over the counter painkillers and swallowed them down as she moved. That would keep the edge off until she was done with what she needed to do. She had a hawk to find.

* * *

_“Dick?” Clint asked, his head feeling fuzzy. He forced himself to sit up, still feeling off. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. He'd just talked himself out lying there next to the girl, and before he knew what was happening, he was asleep. If he'd known he'd do it, he would have moved somewhere else, done something to keep himself awake._

_“Should tell you not to call me that here, but then you should already know that.”_

_Clint grunted, shaking his head as he got up, walking over to his friend. “Where is she?”_

_“Gone.”_

_“Did you make her leave?”_

_“No,” Dick answered, leaning back against the wall. “I told her she should stay. I might not have believed in her ability to change as much as you did, but I didn't make her leave. I promise you that.”_

_Clint frowned. “You're the one that wants to redeem me, remember? How is it you have faith in me but not in her? When did the kid who befriended me without knowing anything about me become so distrusting?”_

_“I'm Robin now,” Dick reminded him. “I've seen a lot of bad in the last few years, and I live with Batman. I'm not as trusting as I used to be. I can still joke and smile, but his voice is always there, telling me not to trust anything at face value. And with you it's not face value. It never was and never could be. I know you too well for that.”_

_Clint nodded. “I just... I thought I was right about her. That she... that she wanted something different. Like I did. I thought I saw it in her eyes.”_

_“Maybe you did,” Dick said, shrugging. “It might just have been the wrong time. Some people need more of that to change. Sometimes they're scared. Sometimes they're angry. Sometimes they're just not ready.”_

_“How did you know I was?”_

_Dick hesitated, and then he answered. “I didn't—I just wanted you to be.”_

* * *

“Coulson.”

Though Phil recognized the voice, he couldn't help but frown as he heard it on the other end of the line. It hadn't been that long since he spoke to Pennyworth, but he doubted that Grayson knew about that call. He was perceptive, but not a mind reader. “You know, I'm not sure I want to know how you got this number. It's not the one that I gave to the butler—who, incidentally, is worried about you—”

“If S.H.I.E.L.D. hurries, there's an extremely dangerous package waiting for it. I've already given you the coordinates. Never cared much for spiders myself, so I suppose I shouldn't feel bad about this one, though I repeat—I do _not_ work for you,” Grayson said, and Phil had a feeling that was unlikely to change. The other man could be very stubborn. “I figure you have about twenty minutes before her genetically modified body overcomes the sedative-toxin mixture I gave her and she wakes up. And I know I shouldn't give her the chance to escape, but I don't know... A part of me wants to believe her.”

“Who?” Phil had missed something there, and he wasn't sure he could spare anyone right now—he needed to get May and Barton back. Now.

_“Chyornaya Vdova.”_

Phil almost dropped his phone. Grayson had gone up against the Black Widow alone and not only lived, the bastard had _won._ Damn. S.H.I.E.L.D had her on a kill on sight watchlist. That kid was impressive. That made it all the more frustrating that he wouldn't join S.H.I.E.L.D.

“And Coulson?”

Phil shook off his thoughts and focused on the voice on the other end of the line. “Yes?”

“Find Clint now because if I have to do it, there won't be much of S.H.I.E.L.D. left to take her in. Are we clear?”

“How did you—?” Phil shook his head as the call ended. He didn't know how the kid did that, but then again, Grayson _had_ been trained by Batman and had other friends in the superhero community, so this shouldn't be any sort of a surprise.

He put his phone away and turned to the nearest agent. “Get me a team and get them to these coordinates. Now.”

“Sir, what about May and Barton?”

“We're still getting them,” Phil answered, “but with a little luck, we'll have them _and_ someone else in our hands soon.”

* * *

“There is no rescue. You are alone. You are always alone now. No agency. No friends. Just death.”

Clint heard the voice. Repeating and repeating in his head with lights and pain and things crawling inside his head. He couldn't focus. He only hurt, and he didn't know why the words seemed to hurt worse than the actual pain did.

He was alone. That was true. He and May had gone in without an extraction plan, but then he didn't think they were going to need one. He regretted it now, with this much agony in his head, but he had never been someone who waited for rescue anyway.

Trouble was, he wasn't really in a position to rescue himself this time.

_“Clint!”_

_“Damn it, not the Grayson kid again,” Swordsman muttered, but Clint heard himself let out a breath of relief. He'd screwed up the routine again, and his mentor was about to smack him right across the face for being so stupid and Clint figured he kind of deserved it._

_Only something seemed to disagree with that because almost every time he got Swordsman into one of these moods, along came Dick, all energy and happiness, coming in with a smile or some news about Zitka, making Swordsman hold back whatever he might have said or done. Dick came to rescue him without even knowing that Clint needed a rescue._

_“Hey, Dick,” Clint said, turning back to him with a smile. “What's up? Because you know—I should still be practicing. I have have a lot of work to do still.”_

_Dick nodded. “I know, but Bill the Bozo—I don't know why he has to call himself that—he taught me a new juggling trick and I tried it wit Zitka and you should so work it into your routine. Come on. That's practice, too, right?”_

_Swordsman snorted. “The elephant can juggle?”_

_“Better than you can,” Dick said, somehow managing to make it not sound like an insult even though it was. “Want to see?”_

_“No. You two go on. Get out of here,” Swordsman said, annoyed. Dick shrugged, pulling on Clint's arm and leading him out of the tent. He started in on what he'd learned, how Billy had dropped the balls but Zitka didn't, and Clint got distracted, only hearing half of it._

_“How is it you always know?” Clint asked, interrupting Dick in the middle of his story. His friend frowned at him. “You always come when I need you. It's like you... know.”_

_Dick shook his head. “I didn't know you needed anything. I just wanted to show you what Zitka can do. Still, I guess... Well, I'd hope that I was always there when you needed me, just like a friend should be.”_

Pain stirred Clint out of his memories, and he felt his head clearing as it did. He knew that the voice was wrong. So was the pain. No amount of lies would change what he already knew. 

“No,” Clint said, somehow summoning the will to fight again. “You're wrong. Not alone. Never. Not since I was six. He'll come. He'd rescue me. But I won't need it. I'm going to kick your ass first.”

“I'd like to see you try.”

Clint smiled. He might be wounded, but he'd do more than _try._

* * *

_Natalia woke, startled, aware that something was missing._

_She looked around her room, and it was the same as it always was. The way she always thought it was. She leaned against the wall and frowned, uncertain of where she was or what had happened. She had a mission. She was..._

_She did not remember. Could not remember._

_She heard a voice. Words. Simple words. Troubling words._

I've been where you are. You don't have to do this. You can pick another way.

_Natalia tried to shut them out, but they lingered, refusing to give her any peace. She didn't know another way. Didn't want one._

_Except that voice told her that she did._

* * *

May's elbow connected with another face, and she smiled slightly as it did. She shouldn't find it amusing, but she did find it satisfying. Every one of the men she took out was one more that owed her for the pain in her head. She had more than paid them back for it, but she wasn't finished.

She was getting closer to Hawkeye, and she knew it, but she was still too far away. She still didn't know how long she'd been out, how far things could have gotten with him. She refused to accept that he was dead, but that didn't mean she would find him in much better shape.

She pushed that thought out of her head and turned the corner, right into another fight.

Coulson and Barton both owed her for this.

* * *

This, Dick thought, was somewhat like leaving the Joker for the police to deal with instead of killing him. He considered his position, not just in the tree where he watched over the assassin he'd just taken down but also over her. He knew that the woman would probably escape S.H.I.E.L.D, if they even managed to get here before she woke and freed herself. He could make sure she stayed secured. He could even kill her—that was what others would do—but he wouldn't. He could make sure she stayed in custody, could wait and see to it that she was arrested. Then justice would happen and his part in it was done.

She'd likely die that way. He figured S.H.I.E.L.D. would see her as too great a threat to let live. She was like the Joker in that as well.

Somehow Bruce always managed to make the choice, to send the Joker back to Arkham instead of taking him apart with his own hands. Dick wasn't sure if he'd be able to do the same.

After all, here he was sitting, watching, waiting, and thinking it might be better if the assassin escaped.

* * *

_Little wing—_

_Sorry I got you into this mess. Don't worry. It's handled. We're on for another day at the track soon as you're healed up, though. You might even get to drive again. Oh, and I almost forgot—Crumbles' wife was a B movie actress, and he loves getting old memorabilia from her movies that no one has heard of—save that for when you_ really _screw up in his class, though._

Jason tried to picture that and failed. He'd seen the photograph Crumbles kept on his desk, and that woman was like a mummy, all dried up and mostly dead. Then again, maybe that was _why_ she was in B movies—because she was that ugly.

Still, that bit about Crumbles could be useful. It didn't make up for Dick and Clint and whoever that girl was, but it was a start. Or it would have been if Jason could have texted him back and said to screw himself, but Dick had blocked his number. So much for being able to contact him whenever Jason needed something. 

He heard a noise and looked up from his phone as Alfred came by the cot.

“You should be resting.”

“This thing buzzed and woke me up,” Jason lied. “Blame Dick. It's his fault.”

“I believe Master Richard would be willing—or perhaps _too_ eager—to accept the blame in this case,” Alfred agreed. He set a tray on the table next to the cot. “You do need rest. Your wounds were severe, and you are fortunate that Miss Barbara found you when she did.”

Jason grunted. “I could have taken her if I'd known she was coming.”

“Indeed, sir, but not everything can be known in advance. I assure you—if Master Bruce had known of this threat, he would not have gone with the Justice League. If Master Richard had known, he would not have let you near this girl. Nor, I believe, would Miss Barbara.”

“I'm not helpless. I can take care of myself.”

“No one doubts your self-reliance,” Alfred said. “Only your common sense. You said yourself that Richard held his own against her—not that he _beat_ her, not that he _won,_ but that he held his own. If that is all Nightwing can do is hold his own, then you should not think you could have faced her alone. Indeed, Richard is a fool for thinking he can. Last time he had Master Clinton with him. This time he does not.”

Jason grunted. “Where's Babs?”

“She was forced to go after Master Wallace. It would seem that this person Richard currently faces injured him as well.” Alfred held out the water glass. “She overcame a metahuman. Do not underestimate this woman, Jason. She is not to be trifled with. I only hope that Master Richard survives this encounter with her.”

Jason grudgingly held up the phone. “He just texted me. He's fine.”

* * *

“Hawkeye.”

Clint grimaced, forcing his eyes open with a grimace. He looked at May and frowned. “Well... You're not the cavalry I was expecting.”

May rolled her eyes. “I figured as much. You kept saying something about a dick, and while I know you could have been talking about him, I _know_ you weren't talking about me.”

Clint looked over at the man on the floor. While he wanted to believe that he was responsible for his tormentor's broken condition, he knew it was probably her that gave him the well-deserved ass kicking. He could live with that, now that he was going to live. “I wanted him to break his arm on my bow. He said it wasn't a weapon.”

She shook her head. “Not going to argue that right now. We need to get you out of here.”

He nodded weakly, letting her prop herself under him and get him to his feet. “Thank you. I didn't—Good to see you, even if I was too out of it to realize who you were at first.”

She nodded, moving them forward. “Don't worry about it. Let's just get you out of here.”

* * *

“What are we going to do?”

Barbara reached up to pull her cowl off, letting her hair fall free. She ran her fingers through it, trying to rid herself of the feeling the cowl left behind on her head. “About what?”

“About Dick,” Wally said, frowning at her like she was crazy. “Come on. I waited until we were back here and in the cave, so now you can tell me whatever it was you thought you couldn't say out in public. We were on a rooftop. Who was going to hear us?”

“You would be surprised, Master Wallace,” Alfred said, and Wally jerked at the sound of his voice. Alfred did not seem amused by his behavior, but then he had been here with Jason while Dick was in danger and Barbara was out retrieving the speedster.

“Alfred, is Jason okay?”

“You could ask me,” Jason called from the bed in the infirmary. “And yes, I am. Just sore, but ready for the rematch.”

“Hardly,” Alfred disagreed. “If you pull those stitches, you will not enjoy the consequences, and not just because it could lead to you bleeding out.”

Jason rolled his eyes, but Barbara had to smile, relieved to see him looking much better than when she'd found him. Wally gave him a smile, too, and Jason shrugged, wincing after he did. Jason closed his eyes. “And if you're so worried about Dick—he's fine. He just texted me.”

“He did?” Wally asked. He frowned. “Did he—oh. I got a message from him, too.”

“What does it say?” Barbara asked, wondering if there would be another for her as well.

“'Donna says crisis in your head. Raincheck on saving the world. Need to see something through,'” Wally read off, frowning. “It is not in my head.”

Jason snorted. Barbara had to hold back her own laughter. Her own phone buzzed, and she looked down to see what Dick had sent her. _Need to keep an eye on Clint for a while. Probably nothing, but we'll see. Just need to see this through._

Barbara shook her head at his stubbornness and was about to put her phone away when a second message came through. _Am fine. No major injuries. Sorry you got dragged into this. Watch over Jason for me, k?_

“Unbelievable, Dick Grayson,” she muttered, but she was afraid she was smiling anyway.

* * *

“Did you mean it?” May asked, her voice quiet, keeping their conversation from the others on the plane. Clint frowned, not sure what she meant. He was tired and not up for a debrief, not after that whole attempt at mind control. It hurt and he hurt and he didn't want to think right now. “When I found you, you were raving. You kept saying you weren't alone.”

“I wasn't.” Clint grimaced. “Well, I was, but I meant—he said no one was coming for me. He was wrong. You did.”

“I did,” she agreed. “I wasn't the one you were expecting, though.”

“No,” Clint said. He shook his head. “It's not that I didn't think you would. I did. I just... I knew that even if you couldn't, he would.”

“Even though he doesn't know where you are or that you were in danger,” May said, frowning slightly. “You still believe that he'd come for you?”

“Yes,” Clint answered. He knew that for sure. He had never doubted it. As soon as Dick heard Clint was missing, he'd come looking. He wouldn't stop until he found him. Only difference would be that he'd do it without killing anyone. “He would, and he'd leave everyone alive when he did.”

“You're kidding,” May said, sitting back and putting a hand to her head. “I thought you two were this set of highly trained assassins—”

“No,” Clint corrected. “I am. Maybe. He's not. Dick doesn't kill. It's not who he is.”

“The mission I drove the bus for,” she began. “You can't say that it didn't happen there. I know better. That whole place went down. Everyone there—”

“Already dead before the explosion,” Clint told her. He shifted in his seat, not exactly proud of it. “My work, not his.”

“You took them all out?”

Clint fidgeted. His wounds weren't the only thing making it difficult to find a comfortable place to sit. “I thought they had him. That they were torturing him. Yes. I took them all out. He knows I'd do it again. It's why he won't work with me. He doesn't want me killing for him.”

“I guess I can see that,” she said, and Clint wondered what she was getting at right before she shrugged. “I suppose that's... impressive. Not sure I can believe that he could do it without killing anyone. I'm pretty sure I did.”

Clint leaned back and closed his eyes. “Pretty sure I would have, too.”

* * *

Bruce walked away from the zeta tube and into the cave, frowning again as he did. He'd had the sense that something was wrong, but he'd told himself to ignore the paranoia and let the kids have their afternoon. Dick was doing Jason good in ways that Bruce couldn't—he'd never been good with the emotional stuff, left that to Alfred—and Clint was proof of how well that had gone in the past. Even Dick resented him, but for some reason, he kept reaching out to Jason, and that would give other people hope.

Batman wasn't about hope. He was about justice.

“What happened?”

“I have been informed, sir, that the perpetrator in question has been dealt with,” Alfred began. “Though Master Richard was quite insistent that no one else be involved in the matter after Master Jason was harmed. He kept it from Miss Barbara and Master Wallace.”

Bruce frowned, hating being forced to repeat himself. “What happened?”

“Someone from Dick and Clint's past came looking for them. Dick lured her off and took care of things,” Barbara answered. “Jason got caught in the crossfire, but he should be okay.”

“And Dick?”

Barbara forced a smile. “He says he's fine and has it handled. I would have thought that he'd have texted you since he sent one to everyone else.”

Bruce grunted, but while she was still talking, the message came through.

_Bruce—_

_Am fine. It's handled. Keep Jason safe. Not sure you'd bother, but don't try and find me._


End file.
